Hey Elise // by Elise Hu

SPARTANBURG, S.C. — Dropped in on the campaign trail real quick to get some video of my former governor, Rick Perry, in my 2004-2006 stomping grounds, Spartanburg. This is the same place where my friend Latoya and I met at Denny’s nearly every Friday night for dinner because we didn’t have much else to do. (Or anywhere else to eat.) And the same place that a guy killed his girlfriend by throwing a hot iron at her head and telling the police that all the blood on the carpet was actually an explosion of condiments like hot sauce and ketchup.

Speaking of ketchup, Perry spoke at The Beacon, a South Carolina drive-in-that-doesn’t-have-a-drive-in-anymore and a standby for visiting politicians. Here’s how my colleague Don Gonyea described it:

There’s no paper or computer here — J.C. takes your order, then hollers instructions to cooks in The Beacon’s unique lingo. For instance, a chili-cheeseburger a-plenty means your plate is going to be covered with french fries and onion rings.

The place goes through 300 pounds of chili on a Friday night. Just the kind of crowd a campaign is looking for.

“If you want to be elected for president, you better come to The Beacon,” Stroble says with a chuckle.

It goes without question that all the food here is predictably greasy — cheeseburgers, onion rings, chili cheese. The Texas governor ordered something which I believe was the go-to order, Chili Cheese A Plenty (double or single patty available). But he gave it a name of his own:

I’m not going to come up with crazy stuff like run a marathon cause I’ve done THAT before and it was the opposite of fun. Instead, some somewhat lofty but likely attainable goals:

1. Send More Handwritten Cards and Letters
What happened in 2011? I am so into stationery, pens and paper* but I couldn’t even pull it together to send our customary batch of Christmas cards this year. Get ready, cause I am going to overcompensate for my dereliction by sending you a note for whatever reason I can think of in the coming year.

2. Organize Photos Immediately After A Set Is Taken
Who knows how many photos have been lost to the cyberwilderness due to the too-many-photos, too-little-time problem? It’s time I try to be more like the wizard/best damn photographer I know, Channing Johnson, and download, sort and edit photos as soon as an event is over.

3. Become Conversant in Spanish
In recent months I have traded in my usual happy hours for twice a week, 90-minute sessions with my private Spanish tutor, Hilda. After being away from Espanol for more than a decade, I decided to get serious again, and Hilda is helping me. Here’s hoping I can be conversant by the end of 2012.

4. Visit Seven New Countries and/or Territories
I’m feeling wanderlusty again. Seven is a good prime number, so that’s how I landed on it. Sudeep wants to hit Iceland, Mom’s basically already signed me up for Morocco, and Beam is planning some Southeast Asian adventure. This resolution will cost me money I don’t have since we’re about to buy a DC house, but like my parents always told me, exploration is invaluable.

*Karl Rove is, too. We go to the same paper place in Austin. He’s really into Moleskin notebooks, Crane paper and Pilot “Varsity” pens, the ladies tell me.

In transit at the Warsaw Airport. (October 2011)

My friend Patrick Terpstra wrote this of his year: “‎2011 was like riding a tilt-a-hurl after eating seven corn dogs. But it sure beats watching from the ground.”

I can’t disagree. I did plenty of plane riding, which is the most consistent memory of this year, besides saying goodbye and hello to a lot of people I really love. To rewind:

The Year I Flew Around the World, Twice: After saying goodbye to Texas and The Texas Tribune, I spent 99 days this year away from home, logging 78,931 miles in the air to 29 locations including places like Warsaw, Poland (for fun) and Boise, Idaho (for work). Not proud of the carbon footprint but I can now glide through security like Ryan Bingham.

Don’t Look Back in Anger (I Heard You Say): It felt like a pretty angry and destructive year, didn’t it? My second favorite emotion*, outrage, seemed to abound. I write this as tens of thousands of Russians protest in the streets, Egypt, Tunisia and Libya take their shaky steps toward self-rule, and socioeconomic dissatisfaction continues at home. We said goodbye to Osama bin Laden, Amy Winehouse and Steve Jobs (none of whom were picks in my clearly talentless celebrity death pool), an earthquake-tsunami combo led to radiation disaster in Japan, and we experienced a rare earthquake in my new hometown of Washington, D.C.

Favorite Video of The Year Is Also My Favorite Song: “Ching Chong (It Means I Love You)”
After a UCLA student went on a crazy rant about Asian people in the library, she faced a backlash so large she had to quit college. But Jimmy Wong turned his rant response into art — one of the catchiest songs of the year, and an instant viral video. It will get stuck in your head, so if you haven’t seen this, you’ve been warned.

Speaking of Asians, My Most Memorable Welcome to Washington: The Crazy Guy in Starbucks
There was one morning after the devastating Japanese earthquake when I went into Starbucks in Chinatown, natch, when a random guy off the street wandered in, started yelling at people in line, stopped at me, and said this, to me: “Fuck you, go home. You deserved the earthquake.” Then he told the rest of the line we were all going to die. Yep.

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That giant horn of plenty was the highlight of my weekend.

Over the weekend, Photographer Brad and I made a quick trip to Des Moines to drop in on the presidential campaign trail, where six of the eight GOP candidates took part in a social issue-themed roundtable discussion while seated behind a gigantic cornucopia. Other observations:

Christmas is really around the corner. At the county GOP event in the morning, where Ron Paul was the featured speaker, there were lots of ill-fitting holiday sweaters and sweatshirts. The expected number of American flag-themed polo shirts turned up, also.

How about that cornucopia, people. Tell me it is not distracting. I have no idea what happened during some of the forum because I was so fascinated with that thing. A sample of the tweets and comments I got about it:

• What’s with the “horn of plenty” in front that looks like the trash heap from Fraggle Rock?

• From here, it looks like a homeless person sleeping.

• On the floor, is it a body in burlap??, a conservative conceptual yule log?

Christmas card photo?

The horn-of-plenty was not just a draw for me and Brad. Rhonda and Kent, a couple from Des Moines wearing these matching Christmas colored flannel outfits asked Brad to take several photos of them in front of the cornucopia in hopes of getting a good Christmas card photo. Posing in front of the cornucopia actually made us late to the next thing, the governor’s birthday party.

While rushing to the Iowa governor’s bash, which all the candidates were planning to attend, we accidentally crashed a wedding at the Altoona Adventureland Hotel. We asked the bar staff where we were SUPPOSED to be, and they said, “You need to go to AdventureLAND, not Adventureland.” Yep.

Newt Gingrich is most definitely the man of the moment. People mobbed the guy as soon as he came in, even though he wasn’t that nice to them and was generally surly during the forum.

After the long day of work, all the boys ignored me at the microbrewery place to instead pay attention to their cell phones. We watched two college football games on the TV screens but that wasn’t enough. They followed the other two on their phones. To be fair, Young Danny was actually focused on final edits to his story.

In perhaps the most amusing part of a weekend of amusement, a Democratic fundraiser who came into the bar for a nightcap started complimenting us on our fashion. He started talking us up about football, but then pivoted to asking about our various backgrounds. “I wanted to get at where you’re from cause you all are dressed pretty sophisticated for Iowa,” he said. To photographer Brad, he said, “I pay attention to fashion, and you’re pants aren’t Carhartts, so I figured you weren’t from here.”

There’s nothing quite like coming off an epic, five-state travel week than to get on an eight-hour flight to start an epic, four-country travel week. Let’s just say I missed a few conference calls today, being anywhere from thirty minutes late to not showing up. But we had some great times over the week, as we visited:

Mont Saint Michel, in Normandy, France
Bruges, Belgium
The Hague, The Netherlands
Warsaw, Poland

Smallest of worlds. Running into Brad Phillips and his wife, Molly, on the single street on Mont. Saint Michel.

1. Talk about random run-ins. In France, on the only street of the other-worldly Mont Saint Michel in the Normandy region, we ran right into an Austin friend, Brad Phillips, who was vacationing with his wife Molly. His firm was responsible for the design of The Texas Tribune. What a mess of humanity. So fantastic.

2. The next morning, Matty and I ran along a little trail from the backyard of the country home-slash-hotel straight to the Mont, a quick 2 kilometer jog. It was gorgeous. I’d run every day if that was my view every day.

3. We finally spent time in Bruges, after we were both introduced to the town by the hilariously dark film, In Bruges, a few years ago. The food was awesome, (try the beer-braised steak dish called stoofvlees if you’re in Belgium), and wandering the old cobblestone streets and canals and churches and all that was really fantastic. So was our bed and breakfast, where the owners made us deliciousness after our relaxing night in their little three-room rowhome.

4. Poland rocks! Warsaw was quite Western — I had expected it to be more, er, Soviet. We enjoyed the Old Town and the Warsaw Uprising Museum the most. They also serve bottles of vodka on the breakfast buffet there. Yep.

5. I came across my first TK Maxx. As a fan of TJ Maxx (which was, incidentally, hosting a fashion show and convention while we were in Boston for Online News Association a few weeks ago), I thought immediately that this was copyright infringement. Thanks to the social media crowd, I learned the TK is actually a legit brand, owned by the TJ Maxx people, to avoid confusion among Europeans with another TJ brand name that’s popular there.

I’ll eventually get the photos together and put up the images here and on the rarely-updated Hu-Stiles Blog.

I’m finally home after an epic, five state, eight day trip that included three conferences, nine airplanes and a drive to New Hampshire and back. Just so I don’t forget, this is what the actual travel path was, though there is no way for me accurately to capture all the hours of conferencing and debauchery and good times I enjoyed along the way. It was so good to see many of you.

Travel Log:

Sunday: Depart for Bloomington, overnight in Bloomington
Monday: Train reporters at StateImpact Indiana, return to DC
Tuesday: Stop back at the office, overnight in DC
Wednesday: Depart early for Boston, rent car, drive to Concord, NH. Train in Concord. Drive back to Boston and overnight in Boston.
Thursday: Full day for Online News Association and overnight in Boston.
Friday: Depart for Austin, overnight in Austin.
Saturday: Full day in Austin Tribune Festival, overnight in Austin.
Sunday: Depart for New Orleans. Overnight in New Orleans.
Monday: Morning in NOLA for SPJ/RTDNA Conference. Depart for Washington.

Upon my return, while hurrying to get out of my last airport of the journey, who do I run into? New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, who was also rushing home after he and other senators made a deal to avoid a government shutdown.

Next week, we’ll be doing four countries in 10 days, just to kick things up a notch.

SALT LAKE CITY — I spent my weekend here, a gorgeous place nestled in the mountains with notably wide streets. I didn’t much explore much, for I was here for the National Governors Association summer meeting. Our NPR StateImpact project has just started its soft rollout, so I came to network with governors and staffers and other people who orbit state government.

There is scant news made here. So there’s been plenty of time to bond with new friends.

On the governors: New Jersey Governor Chris Christie was probably the weekend’s most sought-after governor, at least by the Newark Star Ledger, which sent a reporter and a photographer to come follow his every move. Christie totally denied his home state journos, though, not saying a word all weekend.

Hickenlooper and Balz

I sat in on the WSJ’s one-on-one with Iowa governor Terry Branstad, who just loves talking politics and gave us an earful about how powerful Iowa is in the presidential contest. “We made him, we can sink him,” he said of President Barack Obama. And that night, while having some late night drinks with my new press corps buddies, Governor John Hickenlooper of Colorado invited himself over for beers.

Making new friends through Murdoch: I was marginally concerned about coming all the way out here where I knew no one. But I have the News Corp phone hacking scandal to thank for introducing me to one pal, who then introduced me to a merry band of brothers. This is how Murdoch brought us together:

ME, to SUDEEP, on the phone: Dude, is your paper gonna get sold? Your publisher resigned!
[Conversation continues for a few minutes, then I hang up]

GUY NEXT TO ME IN PRESS ROOM WHO OVERHEARD MY END OF THE CONVO: Were you talking to a Wall Street Journal reporter?

ME: Yep.

GUY: I’m a Wall Street Journal reporter. It’s pretty crazy what’s going on. [He introduces himself.]

“GUY” was my new pal Jonathan Weisman, a longtime political reporter who also happens to know more about the Mormon faith than any non-Mormon I’ve ever encountered. That night, after we were kicked off an event bus by the hosts, we met up with another new friend, the Chuck Babington, and visited the Temple Square. Weisman gave us a detailed tour, natch.

Since there were only about six American journalists in town —  nothing compared to the dozens of Chinese journos who came to cover a US-China Governors Forum — we stuck together. Shared many a meal. Mingled with staffer sources in the lobby. The boys wrote stories. Babington and another vet, Dan Balz, busted my balls for my whining about the bus incident. I taught Dan how to tweet a photo from his phone. And on our last night, The Times’ Michael Cooper joined us for dinner and drinks and told us all about the quirkly Utah liquor laws. It was a pleasure to make some new friends from whom I can learn so much. Like about how you can’t order doubles at the bars, and that the Mormon guardian angel is Moroni.

What else is there to say? We were with some of our favorite people, possibly my most organized friend (Hannah) and in perfect weather all weekend.

By the Numbers

Total Miles Driven in Remote West Texas: 663
Person to Bathroom Ratio in Our Marfa Rental: 6 to 1
Afternoons with Fresh Guacamole: 3
Pairs of Dollar General Shoes Purchased (after leaving real shoes on a ranch): 1
Miles Hiked: 5.1
Highest Elevation: 6700 feet
Bear Sightings: 0
Number of Times Andy Brown Was Photographed Planking Something: 7

And now, the photos:

BORDER PATROL [after I blew past the checkpoint and was whistled back]: Where you in such a hurry to?
ME: Marfa.
BORDER PATROL: Marfa ain’t a place you need to hurry to get to.

On the interstate in Far West Texas, en route to Marfa

Nothing besides eating, that is. Friend Hannah, who organized all of us here with her trademark aplomb, happens to be the founder of Supper Underground in Austin. Homegirl knows her food and can cook a mean meal, but even luckier for us, so can her boyfriend Jed, a fisherman/grilling master. Nom nom nom nom.

Cell phone service is spotty, or else I’d be instagramming and tweeting more. But Marfa Public Radio comes in clear, so we’ve been amused while driving around this little town, listening to our coworkers on the radio. But mostly we are enjoying each other and the stars that guide us home at night, as this is also a place without street lights or street signs to show you the way. Sometimes you have to get a little lost to find your center.

Assignment Editor Kim Deal, me and Andy Still. Had WYFF's then-news director Andy not given me the chance to cover the legislature and campaigns, who knows what I'd be doing today.

GREENVILLE, S.C. — Television news is inherently a team sport. Reporters are nothing without their photographer partners, and the visual stories created in the field are nothing without the teams of producers who craft them into something larger — a newscast, a series, a documentary.

One of the most high-functioning and family-like teams on which I’ve played was in my early twenties, in South Carolina. It was on that team that I was first given a chance to cover politics with regularity. And South Carolina is a place that’s shaped my perspective in indescribable ways.

I moved away five years ago after a couple memory-packed years here, and hadn’t returned until yesterday.

Yesterday would have been the 40th birthday of Chris Gulfman, a talented and reliable photographer who was an even more reliable friend. His gruff exterior masked one of the kindest hearts, a heart that is still beating somewhere, in the recipient of one of Gulfman’s many organ donations after he died suddenly half a decade ago. An undiagnosed brain tumor ruptured in his brain overnight, and more quickly than we could say aneurism, he was gone. (more…)